Question 3: Short-term Objective K

$733,922.00
Fiscal Year: 2010

New!3SK. Support two studies and a workshop that facilitate the development of vertebrate and invertebrate model systems for the exploration of environmental risks and their interaction with gender and genetic susceptibilities for ASD by 2012. IACC Recommended Budget: $1,535,000 over 3 years.

Objective Cumulative Funding Table

IACC Strategic Plan Objective

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Total

Support two studies and a workshop that facilitate the development of vertebrate and invertebrate model systems for the exploration of environmental risks and their interaction with gender and genetic susceptibilities for ASD by 2012.

3.S.K. Funding: The recommended budget was partially met. However, the yearly funding decreased significantly from 2010-2012. It should be noted that this objective overlaps partially with 2.S.B., which is focused on research on sex differences in ASD, and 4.S.B., which focuses on development of animal models that can be used for understanding molecular and neural pathways that can be targeted by interventions. Genetic pathways that play a role in gender differences and other molecular and neural pathways may interact with environmental factors, so funding for these objectives could reflect progress on the goals of 3.S.K.

Progress: Projects by Tychele Turner at Johns Hopkins and Donna Werling at UCLA that are using animal models to investigate sex differences in autism are coded to 2.S.B. The following 2010 workshop sponsored by NIEHS, Autism and the Environment: Advancing the Science, touched on this topic, but it was not the main focus of the workshop.

Remaining Gaps, Needs, and Opportunities: The development of animal models for more broad ASD research is coded to question 4, and the use of such models to answer environmental exposure questions is a next step for this objective.